All Monsters are Human
by artist quest
Summary: "Carina Anne Fox you are sentenced to live out the rest of your life at Trenton State Sanatorium for the Criminally Insane for the crime of stabbing and killing your 10 year old sister Sarah Henry Fox and you father Anthony Albert Christian Fox. We pray you get better in the name of the holy spirit." The big oak doors close behind me, sealing out the world and my life.


All Monsters Are Human

By: Laura Skinner

04/03/14

Finally she was asleep.

I listened to her breathing as it became slower. She was peaceful and unaware. Happy. I constantly struggle and wonder why she gets everything so easy. Why they have always loved her more. Maybe it's because she's younger. Their little baby girl.

The thought makes me sick. So sick.

Well that ends tonight, my awful life ends tonight. They need to pay for what they've done. They need to pay. They will pay. I will make them pay if it's the last thing I do, and maybe it will be. I'm too far gone for misgivings. Too far.

I hid the knife under my bed earlier. They left me home alone, out for dinner together. Just the three of them. I found the perfect spot under my mattress, where they would never find it by accident.

Probably celebrating something wonderful she just did. I barely even get a birthday.

I never had the guts to do it before now. I always imagined the day when I would be free of them, when I turned 16 I could move away and never have to see their ugly faces again. Only one more year. Never would I have to feel the shame of never making them proud. I would never have hurted them, I would never have had the stomach. Until now. Until what they did.

I always loved my books, they were the world away from here. My happiness, my escape. The things I could read in the worst times always made me feel better. Alice in Wonderland by the fire, crying to Black Beauty when they weren't home.

They sold them. Every last one of them. Nothing for me to read. No escape. They said Sarah needed new equipment, she was going to be in the Olympics they reckoned.

Not anymore.

I wasn't quick to snatch up the knife. It felt odd in my hand, unnatural. But my empty bookcases held the handle stronger than I ever could, and together we find my sisters bed. She is the ghost of me, except much prettier. Orange hair, blue eyes, rosy cheeks. I look the same but too short. My boney knees stick out past the end of my silk night gown.

Beside her bed, she looks so careless.

Forever.

Blood everywhere when I am finished. She didn't even scream. Just continues in her slumber.

Forever.

My parent's room is down the hall and to the right. It seems to stretch on for miles. My face is wet, blood and tears. My night gown in no longer white. The door creaks a little when it opens, and I rush to finish the job this time. My mother screams. High pitched. Scared.

Wondering how on earth I could have done such a thing. I so want to tell her. Tell her this is all her fault. It would be for nothing, she will always blame me.

I don't have time to stop her. I didn't see the vase on her bedside table, but before I know it she's slammed it into the side of my head. Crying.

I see no more.

"Carina Anne Fox you are sentenced to live out the rest of your life at Trenton State Sanatorium for the Criminally Insane for the crime of stabbing and killing your 10 year old sister Sarah Henry Fox and you father Anthony Albert Christian Fox. We pray you get better in the name of the holy spirit."

The big oak doors close behind me, sealing out the world and my life. You would think I am scared, but I am not. They asked me if I regretted what I did, and I told them no.

They didn't know what to do with me. Vacant. Rocking back and forth.

So they stuck me here with the insane. I have yet to decide whether or not I belong.

"Come along Carina," says the nun, Sister Emily I think. Any ways she runs the place, along with the other nuns. Black and white.

They stripped me of my pretty button down dress and winged glasses. Oh I loved those glasses. But off to the poor they would go, my poor poor glasses forever to be with my beloved books. Grey nightgown and slippers, my new fancy wardrobe.

I do not respond, I look at the back of her fabriced head. Black. I always wondered why they covered up their beautiful hair. I'm too tired to ask, to care.

"This dear is the common room," old French music on a loop.

Crazy people. I do not mean to give them such a title, since I am in the same situation. However it's the first thought that blossoms in my brain. The room is filled with them. Some dancing and singing, others passed out or asleep. A man is banging his head on a wall to my right and on my left a girl is tapping the glassed window with her pinkie. It doesn't let in much light. The room is fluorescent.

"Take a seat dear," why does she call me dear? Oh look at that couch how comfy. It is comfy, it sinks in quite far as you sit down.

"Feel comfortable dear, any fooling around and you will be sent to solitary. We do not tolerate disobedience here, any misbehaviour will not go unpunished." Maybe I should listen. She leaves.

The seat beside me sinks down. Shaved head, bruised face, hard expression, cold grey eyes.

"What's your name sweetie?," he asks.

"Carina."

"I hear you're one of the most dangerous people in here, tried to murder your whole family I hear. I wonder what it was like to shove that knife into their hearts, was it nice?" I lunge at him, my small white hands wrapped around his throat. I squeeze hard. How dare he say that to me. He will pay. I will make him pay.

"CARINA! HARVEY!"

Strong hands wrap around my skinny body and pull me off him. I struggle but to no use. The guard in blue is too strong. Harvey has blue finger marks around his neck. He is weak. Maybe lack of food and mistreatment.

"20 whips," says Emily, "each. Then solitary for this one." Her cold gaze is fixed on me.

I guess the rumors are true. They do beat us here. Maybe if I had known I wouldn't have...no he deserved what he got.

They take me to her office. It has round and dark stone. The desk is small and bare and there is a table with whips laid across it. They push me onto the desk, making me lean over as she grabs a whip.

"I told you disobedience wouldn't be tolerated here."

The whip struck 20 times, just like she promised. The pain counted for me. Every slash burned a number into my skull, and I knew I would never forget.

I didn't scream, I had to grit my teeth but I am proud. Harvey screams after the first 10 and I feel bad for him, because with every slash he gets I can feel the whip across my back again and again. I wonder if the world knows what goes on in here at all.

They half dragged me to a little cell at the back of the building. I wasn't going to make it easier for them. Not at all.

It is dark stone, a tall metal door. Bars on a small rectangular window looking into the cell. There is a small bed, a flimsy mattress and no pillow. Yet I curl into a ball and stare at the blank stone wall.

I guess time is endless in a place like this. I count every breath, every heartbeat, every passing minute. Time is an endless eternity, something I just realized, and it feels like I've already spent eternity here. The days pass, I know from the change of light and the count of meals.

A small portion of bread and mush. I don't even know what it is, however I'm too hungry to care.

I have to remind myself that nothing lasts forever. Sometimes I feel like it will.

Sometimes I wonder when I will get out of here, but the walls press in on both sides and the minutes keep ticking away. I begin to see shapes in the grey stone, and my imagination is the only thing to entertain myself. The only music to my ears is the screaming outside my cell. I remember the whips on my back as I lie down and they burn. The screaming should bother me, but all it is, is a reminder that I am safe here in this hole and someone else is getting hurt. It is selfish but here alone the only company is myself.

Sometimes I wonder whether I will ever get out of this place. This hole. This building.

Sometimes I remember the things I did. I want it to be horrible but it isn't. I have yet to regret it, so I guess I'm still not cured. I don't think I ever will be.

Memories become dreams with every passing moment. You doubt your existence with every beat in time. The wall are closing in and there is no way to stop them. The one meal a day gets smaller, and so do I. A pile of bones, covered in thin flesh. That is all I've become.

I lay in my bed all day, curled into a ball. Blank. Vacant.

My mind is an empty pool of thoughts that's stopped swirling. I am alone. Forever, and that is the true price I will have to pay for the rest of my life. I only regret not getting to my mother.

Hinges creek for the first time in days, weeks, months. Who knows? Time is endless. Time is an eternity.

Sister Emily is at the door with two guards and a nurse. 'We have decided of your treatment Miss Fox, one we feel will help you...forget your past misfortunes and tortures and will help to move onto a brighter path.'

The guards take me by the arms and drag me along the hallway. I don't have the strength to walk or lift my head. I have nothing any more.

They open the doors to a small room with a metal bed and machine in the corner. Electric machine, straps on the bed. If I could really think I might be able to wrap my small brain around it. But I can't.

They place me on the bed and strap me in. My conscious screams at me.

'THEY'RE GOING TO PERFORM ELECTRIC SHOCK THERAPY ON YOU.'

Maybe I deserve what I am getting, yet I fruitlessly struggle against the bindings anyways. It's a right of passage in this room I think. Countless souls have struggled in this position.

The doctor is closely shaved with a white beard and long nose. Hard expression. He puts glue or something sticky on the side of my head and places the two knobs on each side. It's a head set, a wire leads to the machine. The machine full of electricity.

"NOOOO YOU CAN'T DO THIS!," I scream, my voice cracking from lack of use, it comes out as a whisper.

"Oh but honey", says Emily holding the headset in place, "I can, and the best part. It's all for your own good anyways."

"Your evil," I whisper.

"No more evil than you," she says.

Dr. Ward turns the knob, 70%. Higher than the normal person can take or deserve.

Stiff. Locked. Shaking. Struggling.

I can't move, I can't think. I can't hear my screams. I can only see red hot pain. I can only feel the electricity as it flows through my brain, frying cells in it's path.

Then I think no more.

**A/N: I originally wrote this for a short story school project! However I really liked it so I thought I would share it. I put it under the American Horror Story Category because it is sort of like the second season of AHS, however names won't be the same and such. I hope you enjoyed it. There won't be any more chapter I don't think. I believe I am going to leave it as a one shot. Please review to help me improve on my writing, your suggestions have always helped me.**

**-Laura **


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